Verizon 4g customers lacked service this morning

Verizon 4G LTE customers nationwide woke up Wednesday to find that the network that markets itself as the nation’s “most reliable” was, well, not that reliable.

Customers from Oakland to Dallas to Delaware took to Twitter and Verizon support forums to complain about not being able to connect to their data networks beginning early Wednesday.

Support staff working the @VZWSupport on Twitter have been fielding a flood of tweets about the data outage this morning. Their message to affected customers was basically: “I don’t want you to hate Verizon.”

Verizon officials responded in a statement issued at about 11 a.m. Pacific time that service had returned to normal, but did not say how many customers were affected, how widespread the problem was and how long it lasted. Officials added that the 3G data network “operated normally” during the 4G LTE problem, and that 4G customers were also able to make calls and receive text messages during that time.

Wednesday’s glitch came just two weeks after another network mishap. Customers using the 4G data network reported “intermittent or unavailable 4G service, or devices operating on 3G.” Verizon officials claimed that 3G data devices operated normally, and customers could still make calls and send texts.